


Necessary

by Evandar



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Adorable Bardlings, Gen, Healer Thranduil, M/M, Post-Battle of Five Armies, Pre-Slash, Thranduil Not Being An Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7512922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It is greed when desire for restitution brings cities to ruin. You know this, Mithrandir, and yet you shielded Oakenshield’s purpose from those who could have counselled him.”</i>
</p><p>Thranduil takes exception to Gandalf's presence the night after the Battle of Five Armies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessary

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt on the HobbitKinkMeme asking for _Bard and Thranduil reacting to the fact Gandalf set the dwarves on their quest and didn't consult them or inform them about it. Or confronting him with the casualties from his decisions and see how he reacts to that_. It was also written for the 'Survivor's Guilt' square on my H/C Bingo card.

Thranduil is weary. The aftermath of battle is never pleasant, and he has seen far more of them than he cares to count. His son is alive and uninjured and that is a relief and a blessing. Legolas is with the guards, setting a perimeter around their rag-tag camp at the foot of the mountain. Elves and Men and Dwarves all gathered together. The healing tents are filled with patients from all races, and Thranduil has lost count of the number he has been called to aid. The hot rush of blood and the slick feel of organs lingers like a phantom on his hands, and he has scrubbed his fingers near raw since he retired for the night. It lingers still, but he has chosen wine to numb the sensation out of respect for his company. Bard too has survived the battle without injury; he rests on Thranduil’s bed, surrounded by his children – Thranduil practically had to force him there, and even now Bard does not sleep. He is aware of the Man’s dark gaze following him as he sheds his armour and reaches for his wine, and that awareness makes his gut tighten.

Bard on his bed is a fair sight – one that he shall have to investigate further when the children are not present and he is not so tired. For now he and his family are simply a welcome presence. They are keeping Thranduil from lingering too long on death and sorrow.

He offers Bard a goblet of Dorwinion wine and settles next to the bed instead of into a chair so that he may be close to the living. So many are dead. So many are wounded and will not see the morning. So many more of his folk will sail or fade into the trees in their grief, and the Men and Dwarves will suffer in their own ways as well. He drinks. The wine’s fine flavour is lost on him this night, but it is all he thought to bring with him. 

“What do we do?” Bard asks him. His voice is soft so as not to disturb his children, but it is hoarse with tears unshed. This Man – this new King of Men – is stronger than most. He is brave and bold and no doubt struggling to cope with the events of the last few days. Thranduil recalls his own encounter with a dragon and subsequent ascension to royalty – the two events were close, though unrelated – with horrifying clarity. Bard has suffered similar. Worse, perhaps, for he was the one to face Smaug directly while Thranduil met only with fire and pain before the great eagles threw Ancalagon back into the mountainside.

He shivers. Bard’s free hand drops to his head, and for the first time in millennia, Thranduil experiences the sensation of another person touching his hair. He leans into that touch, and into the promise it holds.

“Our people first,” he says. “And our children. And whatever comfort we can claim. The land will heal and, with time, the shadow of this battle will lift.”

“And then?”

And then, Bard will most likely be cold in the ground for the lives of Men are short, and Thranduil will once more face an eternity alone. “And then we will rejoice,” he says quietly, “as all must do in times of peace.”

He empties his goblet and lets it fall from his fingers. He feels not so much weary as he does _old_. He closes his eyes and allows the magic that keeps him beautiful to fade. Bard cannot see his face from this angle and so the gentle comfort he offers does not cease.

This is how Mithrandir finds them when he pushes the flap of the pavilion aside: Thranduil Elvenking half-asleep on the floor, his scarred face slack with pleasure as Bard Dragonsbane – half-buried in sleeping children and half-asleep himself – slides his fingers through his hair. They are stained with soot and blood and tears. Thranduil peers up at the wizard, and for the first time since the battle started, he feels something other than his age. Something other than sorrow.

He feels _furious_.

If Mithrandir sees his rage, he does not react to it. His blue gaze glitters with something approaching warmth as he takes in their appearance, and he gathers his cloak about himself as he looks about for a seat. Thranduil interrupts him by moving. He stands abruptly; he remembers only barely to restore his glamour with a flex of his fingers before Bard can glimpse the ruin of his face. 

Next to him, Bard shifts. Their peace is ruined, but he still tries not to disturb his children. He is a good father – for some reason, that thought manages to tame Thranduil’s rage into something cool and sharp. It becomes a weapon he can use.

“Mithrandir,” he greets. “We were not expecting you.”

“So it would seem,” the wizard replies. Outside the pavilion, Elvish laments rise to the stars. They sing the names of his people, of Bard’s, of the Dwarves’. The desolation at the foot of Erebor is awash with the blood of all the free races, winter is coming, and what alliances they have are young and fragile things. More names, he knows, will be added to those laments by the time spring arrives. 

“It is a farewell I have come to bid. Bilbo wishes to return to the Shire, and the Misty Mountains will soon grow too treacherous.”

“And so you choose the safety of one Halfling over the chaos you have caused here,” Thranduil says. “Tell me, Mithrandir, did you ever plan to _tell_ me of Thorin Oakenshield’s quest ‘ere his party passed through my kingdom? Did you plan to tell the Master of Laketown that his people were to be put at risk to sate the greed of Dwarves?”

“Greed? _Is_ it greed to desire a home?”

“It is greed when that desire ignites a war.” He closes his eyes, briefly. “It is greed when desire for restitution brings cities to ruin. You know this, Mithrandir, and yet you shielded Oakenshield’s purpose from those who could have counselled him.”

“Lord Elrond –“

“Has never lived in the shadow of a dragon!”

Behind him, one of Bard’s children makes a noise of sleepy protest. Thranduil turns away from the wizard, an apology rising on his lips. But the children are still sleeping and an echo of his own anger is clear in Bard’s dark gaze.

Even angry, even grieving, he can see the beauty in this Man. Once, he had failed to see what the Lady Luthien thought so appealing. Under the eaves of a different woodland kingdom, he had questioned the choice she made without thought that one day, in a different land and a different time, he too would find beauty in a mortal.

“Your White Council,” he says, dragging his attention back to the wizard. “With their baubles and their vaunted bloodlines, do forget that there are other Kings in this world. Kings who rule over peoples no lesser than their own. Kings who would know the nature of the threats about to be delivered upon them.” 

Mithrandir’s jaw firms. He has displeased the wizard with his defiance, and Thranduil finds that he cares little. He has heard that the Men in the south refer to Mithrandir as “Storm Crow” for the tidings he brings. In this moment, Thranduil can find few more fitting monikers – certainly none he would dare to mention in front of Bard’s children, sleeping or no.

“It was decided that Erebor would be better held by the Dwarves than by a dragon,” Mithrandir says. Thranduil can give him that – but the Dwarves who now hold it are few in number, and with fewer stores to keep them alive. With Laketown burned and Dale unrestored, it is Thranduil who must bear the burden of the lives of three kingdoms. “It was my intent to accompany Thorin Oakenshield through your lands, but I was called away by a more urgent matter on your southern border.”

“The Necromancer in Dol Guldur,” Bard says, speaking for the first time. “The stories are true?”

“Worse,” Thranduil guesses. He is…not as unaware as people may imagine. He defends his people as best he can; he keeps them within the borders he creates with his magic, and he hopes that it will be enough. He expects no aid for the same reasons he is not truly surprised by Mithrandir’s decision not to inform him of Oakenshield’s quest. His people are too often dismissed as “less wise and more dangerous” and, as their King, he is often dismissed as such too. 

The world has forgotten, it seems, that he once shared a teacher with the Lady Galadriel; that Queen Melian taught him her craft. His power may be more limited, but at least it is his own in its entirety.

Mithrandir inclines his head. “When Thorin Oakenshield passed through your realm, the White Council travelled to Dol Guldur. There we did battle against a force long thought banished from these lands. The Necromancer was no human sorcerer but the shadow of the Enemy, returned once more to Mordor.”

It is as he’d expected, then.

“This was a diversion,” Bard says quietly. “The dragon, our people, all of it.”

“It was necessary,” Mithrandir replies.

An anguished wail breaks the night before any more words can be exchanged. A new corpse to add to their growing collection – Elf or Man or Dwarf, Thranduil cannot tell. They are all the same, this evening. All fragile, mortal beings. They are bound together in grief, and though the morning may reveal where the cracks in their alliances lie, for tonight Thranduil wants only to sleep and try to forget the sensation of lives fading beneath his hands. 

“Take your Halfling, Mithrandir,” he says, turning away from the wizard once more. “Return him to his rolling hills and his little rivers, and tell your Council that the north shall prevail without them as it has always done.”

“Will we?” Bard asks him once Mithrandir has departed. “ _Can_ we prevail over this?”

Thranduil sinks down next to him on the bed. He curls himself around Bard’s youngest daughter and reaches out to the Man for comfort. Once more, Bard provides it, his mouth twitching into a strange smile that somehow manages to betray both fondness and disbelief.

“We have no choice,” Thranduil tells him. “It is necessary.”


End file.
